Reality Bites

Never in Western society has the word hubris been so misunderstood, and never has it been so widely practiced. It doesn't just mean excessive pride; it means the pride of the gods. The Greeks understood/believed/whatevs that certain things were out of the power of mortal men. If you tried to do those things... well, that's hubris. You can be as proud as you like, and that's fine, but when you start to think you have the power of the gods, that's a different thing and you will be punished post-haste as an example to the others.

Now what does that have to do with some dumb-ass who thinks his Accord Coupe can dust a Coyote-powered Mustang?

Western civilization is busy dismantling faith and belief and sincerity with every tool at its disposal. We ridicule the religious, we browbeat the believers, we snark the sincere. Our cultural emblem is the twenty-eight-year-old hipster: he's accomplished nothing, he's dropped out of the competitive economy, he pursues little ironic passions like vinyl records or food trucks that carry the deconstructive seeds of their own self-aware triviality within them so they can never be truly ridiculed.

"Hey, , you're a grown man who should have a wife and a child and a real job but you spend all day shopping at the thrift store for fedoras!"

"So?"

So. Obviously modern society is obsessed with the meaningless. That's all that's safe. If you go to a party and talk about your belief in the living Christ or your genuine concern about starving children in Africa or your personal dedication to Habitat for Humanity you'll be tuned out at the speed of thought. Far better to be obsessed with things like food trucks or Boards of Canada records or swing dancing. Nobody can really criticize you for any of that stuff because it's totes obvs that you can't really mean it. It's not like I'm not guilty of this myself: I own seventy-two Matsumoku guitars. That's not exactly on par with writing the next great American novel or composing a timeless jazz album. Getting and spending and you know the rest.

But why do it at all? Why care about "Hell's Kitchen" or alpaca sweaters? That's where hubris comes in. We've convinced ourselves we have the power of the gods in which we no longer believe. That we can reverse the cours